UK Snooker Championship: Magician Shaun gets kicks by playing it ‘cool’ (From York Press)

UK Snooker Championship: Magician Shaun Murphy gets kicks by playing it ‘cool’

10:16am Thursday 8th December 2011 in Snooker By Steve Carroll, Sports reporter

SHAUN MURPHY kept his composure as Martin Gould threatened to pull off one of the greatest UK Championship comebacks.

The ‘Magician’ raced to a 5-0 lead in their last 16 clash, but could only sit in his chair as it was clipped to just one frame.

But the world number six, a UK winner in 2008, revealed he had been training for such adversity and it was that preparation that pulled him through.

“What’s won me the match is that I have kept my composure. It’s something I have worked on a lot recently – as recently as the last few weeks,” he said.

“I have really, really worked hard just to keep my cool, keep my head together and make very clear decisions.

“I was unlucky a few times, with a few kicks and a few bad bounces, but I can’t do anything about that and it has taken me 21 years of playing the game to understand you can only worry about the things you can control.

“When I did get my chance in the end, I took it.”

Murphy believed few players could have lived with him in the opening part of the match, breaks of 86 and 102 in the second and fourth frames giving him a commanding 4-0 advantage.

When he won a scrappy fifth, despite missing a straightforward red at one stage, it seemed Gould would be whitewashed.

But Murphy reckoned the snooker gods turned against him.

“I thought it had all the hallmarks of 5-5,” he added. “I was all over him for the first four frames – didn’t miss a ball – and I missed an easy red in the fifth.

“I just took my eye off it and it was almost like the game said ‘I’m going to kick you’. It did.

“Every time I had a chance to win I had a kick or a bad bounce off a cushion. I thought I was really unlucky then for the next few frames.”

Under the circumstances, Gould produced a brilliant 133 break in the sixth – allowing a little fist pump to celebrate getting one on the board – and took the next after Murphy got a huge kick when he missed what would have been a winning pink.

The revival continued as Gould racked up the next two with 70 and 101 but, after the Pinner potter watched a yellow rock the jaws of a bottom pocket in a tenth frame that lasted more than 45 minutes, Murphy calmly made the game safe.